Cypher is a over-elaborate, high-tech tale of corporate espionage. In this world, large corporations are above the law (a statement which also applies to the world of this movie) and their is a feud between Digicorp and Sunways.
When we meet our main character, Morgan Sullivan, he is a Regular Joe who chooses to take a job as a spy for Digicorp. Digicorp attempts to brainwash him into becoming a better spy, but Lucy Liu shows up and gives him some drugs to stop it. He then convinces Digicorp that he believes he is brainwashed into thinking he is Jack Thursby and they kidnap him and set him up with a job interview at Sunways. At Sunways, Morgan/Jack fails the brain scanning portion of the interview and is found out to be a Digicorp spy. It turns out that Sunways hired this guy Rooks to get them a Digicorp spy that wasn't brainwashed. So, Morgan/Jack gets a job as a Sunways spy pretending to be a Digicorp spy. Realizing that he is screwed, Morgan/Jack contacts Lucy Liu so that he can start working for Rooks, too. Rooks wants him to plant a virus in Sunways' super-secret archive, but on the way to do so he is met by another Rooks operative who says he's actually working for Digicorp. This guy wants him to steal a file instead and since Morgan/Jack hadn't betrayed anyone for a few minutes and going along with whatever plan he's told has brought him this far, he does so. Soon after, Morgan/Jack learns that he was Rooks all along and that this was all planned from the beginning to steal that one file. Morgan/Jack/Rooks is a super-genius, mega-wealthy inventor who invented the brain scanning/washing technology in the first place three years ago (with an implication that he invented them with the intention of subverting them) and Lucy Liu is his lady-friend.
Believe it or not, the movie is going pretty well up until this point, other than the unnecessary twist of getting Morgan/Jack/Rooks to betray Rooks and that no plan with this many moving parts would work in the real world. Where it all falls apart is when we find out what was in that file and worth all this trouble to begin with. Is it a business opportunity worth trillions of dollars or proof of a scandal which will destroy the corporate oligarchy forever? No, that would feel disappointing at this point in the film. It was a Sunways death warrant for his lady-friend. He was doing it all for love. So they could live out the rest of their lives together in peace. How sweet! Unfortunately, it also makes his entire plan incredibly stupid.
First of all, how long did this plan take to plan and execute. Certainly no less than a year and if he invented the various technologies he subverts as part of his plan, it could have easily been over a decade. During which time, Lucy Liu doesn't die. Apparently, Sunways' preferred method of murder is old age.
Of course, to execute this plan Lucy Liu had to put herself in danger multiple times from both Sunways and Digicorp. So, his plan to get Sunways to stop trying to kill her involves getting Sunways and Digicorp to try to kill her. In fact, the person who comes closest to killing Lucy Liu is Morgan/Jack/Rooks himself who fucking shoots her because she was sleeping with Rooks which he learned about during that completely brilliant and necessary twist discussed earlier. Any plan where there is a danger of shooting the woman whose life you're trying to save because she's sleeping with someone who isn't you that actually is you has a few flaws in it.
Then, there is the matter of all the other things he could have done instead. He could have just taken his lady-friend and hightailed it out of town (which is ultimately what he did anyway). He had the money and power to disappear. Sunways is a corporation and all they care about is profit, so he could have tried buying her safety with either cash or technology. Or, alternately, gone to Digicorp to buy security. Fuck, he could have bought and trained his own private army more easily and cost effectively than what he wound up doing. Any of these plans would have been a better way to go.
There are really only three motives in the world: greed, politics and/or religion, and love and/or sex. Everything we do stems from one or more of these motives. While love is a more interesting motive than the other two, it is also the one which fits this film the worst. Had this been an elaborate heist, the credits would have rolled on an entertaining sci-fi flick, but making it about love brings this movie to a sudden screeching train-wreck ending that all but ruins all that came before it. And that's why motive matters.
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